Local authorities unhappy with rise of controlling officers

Local public authorities are dissatisfied with the increase of the number of officials entitled to operate controls in territories, Info-Prim Neo reports. According to Vasile Balica, the deputy president of Cimislia district, through a governmental decision approved of in January, the number of the staff in the administrative control rose from 61 to 98. “Each district will have a representative of the administrative control with car and secretary. Including in such districts as Basarabeasca, Taraclia, which have by seven mayor offices,” he said. Vasile Balica doubts whether those expenses are justified under the circumstances when the local authorities are asked to optimize permanently. “We don’t fear checkups. But were not enough the directions of administrative control checking by 4 districts each? Did we really need to give birth to a controller for every district? We are fed up with so many controlling organs as they are in Moldova,” Balica said. Similar statements were made concerning the Government’s January decision by the president of Ialoveni district, Mihai Silistraru, in a radio interview. Asked to comment on those statements, the Public Administration Minister in office, Valentin Guznac, says there are 8 controlling directions working in territories since the constitution of the ministry. Two more directions were formed through a governmental decision: one in Causeni and other in the Gagauz Autonomy in order to make the work more efficient. The Law on administrative decentralization provides, in art. 7, that the Local Public Administration Ministry coordinates the services working in territories. In order to perform this coordination, by one unit of responsible specialists was instituted in 25 districts, the Minister said. Those specialists will not deal with verifying the legality of the acts approved of by the local public authorities – the competence of those 10 administrative control directions –, but will coordinate the work of the decentralized services working the territories, Valentin Guznac said.